Death Penalty Not Frequently Sought In Md.

Prosecutors Blame Appeals; Defense Attorneys Cite Jury Decisions

Since officials reinstated Maryland's death penalty in 1976, the punishment has all but disappeared.

WBAL-TV 11 News I-Team lead investigative reporter Jayne Miller reported victims' families have directed prosecutors to seek other options due to the length of the appeals process.

The state's last execution put Wesley Baker to death on Monday night. Baker was convicted in the 1991 robbery and murder of Jane Tyson.

He had filed for several stays of execution, but the courts rejected all last-minute appeals. The governor refused to intervene, and less than two hours later, Baker was put to death.

"This was a particularly egregious case in the sense that Mrs. Tyson was never allowed to be robbed. This was not a robbery gone bad. This was an execution and then a robbery," Gov. Bob Ehrlich said.

Tyson's brother told 11 News via telephone on Tuesday that he is relieved that the process for his family has finally ended. He described each time Baker's appeals went to court as "picking the scab off a wound."

Baker had been on death row since 1992, but the 13-year-long appeals process is typical in the state.

Miller said 13 years also passed between sentencing and execution in the case of Steven Oken. Eleven years elapsed in the case of Flint Gregory Hunt, and nine years passed in the case of Tyrone Gilliam.

Last week, it was the length of the death penalty process that drew the sharpest comments from Phyllis Bricker, whose parents were murdered by death row inmate John Booth-El in 1983.

The appeals process in that case continues.

"It's taken 22½ years to get closure and justice. We're angry and frustrated," Bricker said last Thursday.

Prosecutors said that sense of fatigue by victims families is the main reason that Maryland's rate of imposing death sentences has slowed.

Seven men remain on Maryland's death row, but just one -- Jamal Abeokuto -- was sentenced since 2000.

Prosecutors in Baltimore County, long the capital of capital punishment in Maryland, said victims' families have increasingly discouraged the pursuit of death sentences because of the length of the appeals process.

Defense lawyers attributed the slowdown in the application of the death penalty largely to jurors who often opt instead for a sentence of life without a parole, which is an automatic option in capital cases.